


Texts into the Ether

by LyraNgalia



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Episode: s04e01 The Six Thatchers, Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, F/F, F/M, Gen, Post-Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, References to Drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 12:40:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9385598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia
Summary: Everyone texts. Even Sherlock Holmes.He prefers to text everyone, and he can anticipate their answers. But there is one person whom he texts whose reactions he is never certain of. One person to whom texts seem to go into the ether, and whether or not she responds is something only she knows.





	1. Just Texts

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [SorrowsFlower](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SorrowsFlower) for the continued encouragement, and the once-over of Chapter 2.

Her texts are rare now.

He supposes the business of being the spider in the middle of a vast web keeps her busy, keeps her entertained the same way his cases does him. But then, she doesn't need the texts to know about his comings and goings. John's blog does that well enough, keeps the world (and by extension her) abreast of every case with breathless effusion.

After all, he's had a year with her. Surely that was enough conversation to last them both for months. Years before their next holiday.

His fingers twitch at the idea. Grasping for a phantom cigarette. He picks up his mobile. Stares at it. Stares at the Montenegrin number that had appeared on its screen a month ago. His thumb hovers over the number, and he taps in a text.

 

"Bored. Last case was dull. It was actually the butler."

 

He stares at the three lines. Idiotic. Deletes it. He is about to put his phone away when something occurs to him.

He does not assign a name to the Montenegrin number. But he does assign it a ring tone.

 

*****

 

Three cases, two of them murder. One of them a supremely lucky chicken. The murders will make it onto his blog. Mary will keep John from writing about the chicken.

Mary is unbelievably pregnant at this point. John stays close to home. Sherlock is bored. He stares at his ceiling, at the gunshots in the wall, and there is a phantom ache in his shoulder as he picks up his phone.

 

"Stormy in Montenegro this time of year."

 

Before he can think about, before he can second guess himself, he presses send. The progress bar is practically gone before he's done. 'Delivered', the little grey letters inform him.

His phone remains silent.

 

*****

 

Mary is three days past due. Sherlock cannot help but think of how it has been... six months and fourteen days since the last text he received from that number in Montenegro. No words, just a tiny hand and an even tinier bundle of wrinkles and dark hair, a small pink mouth seeking a darker pink breast. His fingers twitch. He does not pull up the picture. He doesn't need to. He can recall it with perfect clarity in his mind palace.

Sherlock wonders about whether John or Mary will be more likely to wake up for midnight feedings. He considers the time difference.

He reaches for the breast pocket of his dressing gown, takes out his phone.

 

"I'm not hungry."

 

The little mocking grey words again. 'Delivered.'

Silence.

 

*****

 

He does not text her when Mary gives birth, does not tell her about the coat that has been dry cleaned. No doubt she would laugh at that. He remains silent. As silent as she has been. He does not tell her that he misses John because the baby takes up his time and Mary's. He does not tell her about the dog. Or the cases. He does not text her for months. He wonders if she is annoyed by this. Or if she even notices. Midnight feedings and criminal enterprises kept one busy, he supposes, peevishly.

He leaves Rosie's christening, and is walking for a cab, when the sigh issues from his mobile, breathless and throaty. He keeps his hand out of his pocket, hails a cab. He makes it 42 seconds before he looks down at his mobile.

 

"I like the new Twitter account."

 

He catches himself smiling, then frowns, glaring down at his mobile. He does not delete the text. Nor does he change the ring tone.

He also does not answer.

 

*****

 

It is three days after Mary's death that he texts her. His hands are shaking and there is a rapidly cooling syringe of cocaine, untouched, next to his tea.

It takes him three tries.

 

"Tell me you're both safe."

 

He retreats to his mind palace. He offers himself up on his knees to the figment there, stripped bare. Her whips are sharper in his mind than they ever were in real life, because there is no skin to break in his mind palace. Every lash she offers him is a fresh hit of cocaine in his veins, every flagellation a fresh jolt of drugs.

He is not certain when she texts back.

 


	2. 1400 Miles Between Texts

She does not text him after they part ways.

She knows he is on his way to Serbia, and she keeps an eye on the papers even though she knows it would not be reported if he had come to some ignoble end in Serbia. She immerses herself in the task of gathering the useful bits of Jim Moriarty's web to herself, enforcing her will with Sebastian Moran's gun at her right hand, ensuring she is well and truly ensconced in the center of the Spider's web before her pregnancy begins to show.

The day the London papers proclaim Sherlock Holmes' triumphant return to Baker Street, she breathes easier. That is the day she orders a new mobile from Montenegro, something more elegant and more powerful than the burner mobiles she's spent a year using and discarding. Irene has the mobile delivered to a house in Nikšić, with a note to be held until called for.

She appreciates the irony.

 

***

 

She is seven months pregnant when she moves from Amsterdam to Nikšić. She dislikes the need to disappear, the biological needs of the fetus (no, the Inconvenience is no longer simply a fetus, though she tries not to dwell too hard on that fact) requiring a degree of privacy and security she herself chafed under. But it was necessary, not only to keep the Inconvenience who would soon be a child physically away from the lieutenants of her network, but to keep the existence and location of the Inconvenience from other spying eyes.

The house in Nikšić is prepped by the time Irene arrives. It is a warm little house, full of light but relatively private, and its homey coziness irritates Irene, who prefers sleek leather designer furnishings, the crisp modern lines of expensive designer furniture rather than the rag rugs and tasseled throws that softened the leather couch and warmed the beds. Nell Huxleigh, her companion, simply smiled at Irene's irritation, and handed her the box that had been waiting for four months.

Irene retreats to the library, a comfortable place of polished wood shelves heavy with leather-bound books, and opens the package. Setup of the mobile takes no time at all, and she hesitates when she considers the need for a pass code. Biometrics were too insecure, a fingerprint could be lifted from any surface, but she had learned her lesson long ago with regards to pass codes.

She hesitates for a moment before punching in a random string of numbers, one that was easy to remember, but that had little significance.

This particular mobile was, after all, not key to her heart, but an extension of her mind, and there was no better way to ensure its security than with cold calculation.

Still, once it was set up, the custom mobile with its enhanced security and embedded explosives, Irene enters a London number, a contact that needs no name. Her lips curve into a smirking smile, teasing with the edge of barbed wire, and her thumb hovers over the keys.

 

“I'm not dead.”

 

She does not invite him to dinner.

 

***

 

It is a brilliantly sunny day in Nikšić when her mobile rings, a text alert that is little more than a few plaintive notes on a violin. The Inconvenience who is now an Infant, Nero, does not stir in Nell's arms, though Nell does look up, questioning, at the unfamiliar ring. Irene shakes her head and rises from the table where she'd been scanning the papers, a half-eaten piece of toast at her elbow.

She is tired, her body still recovering from the incubation of one child and the physical aftermath of labour, but her mind is restless, and Irene picks up the mobile with a negligent hand, wandering over to the wide open windows before checking the text. It is all a pretense, of course, the need to prove to both herself and Nell that it was just another text, the sender no one in particular even though no other individual had a custom ring tone on Irene's mobile.

Nell continues cooing to Nero at the table, and Irene ignores both her companion and the child. She is grateful for Nell's presence, despite chafing at the necessity for this hideaway. Sentiment was what conceived the infant, and mutual curiosity had been what convinced Irene to keep him, but Irene was too much herself to change, too cold too cruel too calculating to be _kind_ , and no amount of labour or pregnancy hormones had made her maternal in the way Nell seemed to slip into the task. Staring at the window, at the well-kept garden and its greenery gleaming in the sunlight, Irene turned her attention to her mobile and the seven words it displayed.

 

"Stormy in Montenegro this time of year."

 

She smiles, and though her fingers twitch in anticipation to respond, she merely composes the text in her mind. And leaves it there, unsent.

 

_Wrong. You should come see for yourself._

 

***

 

The Infant grows, and despite her lack of maternal instinct, her lack of the finer feelings that Nell seemed to overflow with concerning the Infant, Irene watches him with a critical eye, comparing his development with the list in her mind. His growing motor coordination, whether or not he'd discovered object permanence (no) or the fact that his fist fit into his mouth (yes). She tells herself it is because she is bored, because Nikšić is a small sleepy city, because the house is homey and utterly unlike her. And there is some truth to it, that while she took part in midnight feedings and the occasional bath for Nero, Irene was content to let Nell handle the physical raising and caring of the Infant, and she longed to return to her work, to the puzzle and the criminal network she reigned over on strands of gossamer. She was bored, and she wanted work.

It is about nine months after Nero's birth that Nell finally acquiesces, finally recognizes that bonding with a blanketed bundle is never going to be one of Irene's strong suits and agrees that she and the Infant could stay safely in Nikšić while Irene returned to her web, to the criminal enterprise that entertained her. It would not do for the recently claimed throne to go empty for much longer, after all.

Irene is packing for the flight to Copenhagen when the message comes, announced by the plaintive notes of the violin. A silk slip between her fingers, Irene looks up in surprise at the mobile, sitting on the bedside table, and she pauses, letting the slip fall to the ground before she reaches for it.

Three words.

 

“I'm not hungry.”

 

She arches one perfect, dark eyebrow at the three words, her lips twitching in a small smile. For one brief second, she entertains the idea of changing her plans, of changing her destination from Copenhagen to London, just to see what would happen. After all, she could be as efficient a criminal mastermind anywhere, but she dismisses the idea as soon as it occurred. No, London was off limits to her games. It was an unspoken agreement between them. London was Sherlock Holmes', and the rest of the world was hers. London's criminals were his to catch (though she planned to drive one into his path next January) and she would not play their games in the city where the collective shade and shadow of Mycroft Holmes and James Moriarty loomed large.

No, it was base sentiment that made her consider it, and she pushes the idea out of her mind.

She picks the slip off the floor and continues packing. She does not text him back.

 

***

 

She is in Madrid, having left Copenhagen and Munich behind with a subtle trail of destruction. A rising politician, quietly disgraced and resigned; a bank manager caught with an escort who satisfied some very specific desires; a member of organized crime drops dead in broad daylight, yards from the police station, dead of a very precise hole in his head. Seemingly small crimes, the fading tremours of a quiet tectonic shift. Irene enjoys herself immensely, and there are weekly updates from Nell about the little house in Montenegro and the infant boy that lives in it. Irene grudgingly admits she likes this arrangement, likes the idea of the Infant no longer Inconvenient, likes the challenge of her web.

She will hear more about the dead man in Munich in a day or two, when Moran will have made his way circuitously from Munich to Madrid by way of Reykjavik. Until then she walks Madrid's streets, reads her papers. She checks John Watson's blog from her mobile but there have been no updates, and she reminds herself that the good doctor's child must have been born. Irene is bored, and she takes an outdoor seat at a neighbourhood cafe, watching the tourists and the locals pass with half-closed eyes, as she contemplates her mobile.

Her perfectly shaped nails click on the wrought iron table, and she considers the nameless contact, the London number, and its unresponded to texts. Two days until Moran was due. How much _fun_ could she have in two days...

It is sentimental, idiotic and ordinary, and she taps out the message before she can convince herself not to. Before she can call it back.

She is, after all, _bored_ , and there was no better cure for her particular sort of boredom than a game.

 

"I like the new Twitter account."

 

The message flits off into the ether, neither beckoning nor commanding, but a temptation all the same.

 

***

 

She is on her mobile when the text comes, the telltale violin drowned out by the sharp crack of her own voice. “I don't _care_ ,” she snapped, all but growling into the phone at the incompetent twit on the other end. “Yes, gunshot wound to the abdomen, blood loss, yes you've gibbered all of that at me before. But she's stable enough for you to pick up your phone, therefore you'll have her ready to travel by tomorrow. And if anyone realizes she's still alive, _you_ will not be, do you understand me?”

The voice on the other end gibbers again, words that Irene did not particularly care about, given she could already tell from his tone that he was sufficiently cowed. She disconnects the call with a wordless sigh and is about to put the mobile away when she notices the text.

 

“Tell me you're both safe.”

 

She pauses, and her irritation over her call drains away and something like guilt creeps up her throat. She can conjure him up in meticulous detail in her mind, every curl every sneer. But she knows it is sentiment that drives him to the text, sentiment and fear. The same sort of fear that had driven him to call her by name when they take refuge in epithets, in titles.

Irene knows why he is afraid, knows what has driven him to this fear. The death of Mary Watson. Or, more accurately, the apparent death, so well played as to fool both Holmes brothers... The death she had helped Mary orchestrate. Her fingers twitch, and a part of her wants to confess, wants to reassure him that his fear is unfounded, that his guilt is unfounded, but Rosamund had needed an escape plan, and Irene would provide it.

Irene stares at the words on the screen for a long moment, her brow furrowing. Lies come easily to her, but her fingers refuse to move, refuse to tell him anything but the truth. She owes him that much.

She is slow, deliberate, as she taps in the words.

 

“We are. I'll see him in two days.”

 

She hits sends. And leaves the posh hotel room in Brussels. She had a plane to London to catch.

 


End file.
